Six Sigma

Six Sigma is a set of techniques and tools for process improvement. It was introduced by
engineer Bill Smith while working at Motorola in 1986.[1][2] Jack Welch made it central to his
business strategy at General Electric in 1995.[3] Today, it is used in many industrial sectors.[4]
Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of the output of a process by identifying and removing
the causes of defects and minimizing variability in manufacturing and business processes. It uses
a set of quality management methods, mainly empirical, statistical methods, and creates a special
infrastructure of people within the organization, who are experts in these methods. Each Six
Sigma project carried out within an organization follows a defined sequence of steps and has
specific value targets, for example: reduce process cycle time, reduce pollution, reduce costs,
increase customer satisfaction, and increase profits.
The term Six Sigma originated from terminology associated with statistical modeling of
manufacturing processes. The maturity of a manufacturing process can be described by a sigma
rating indicating its yield or the percentage of defect-free products it creates. A six sigma process
is one in which 99.99966% of all opportunities to produce some feature of a part are statistically
expected to be free of defects (3.4 defective features per million opportunities). Motorola set a
goal of "six sigma" for all of its manufacturing operations, and this goal became a by-word for
the management and engineering practices used to achieve it.
Six Sigma projects follow two project methodologies inspired by Deming's Plan-Do-Check-Act
Cycle. These methodologies, composed of five phases each, bear the acronyms DMAIC and
DMADV.[9]

DMAIC ("duh-may-ick", /d.me.k/) is used for projects aimed at improving an existing

business process.[9]

DMADV ("duh-mad-vee", /d.md.vi/) is used for projects aimed at creating new

product or process designs.[9]

DMAIC

The five steps of DMAIC

Main article: DMAIC
The DMAIC project methodology has five phases:

Define the system, the voice of the customer and their requirements, and the project
goals, specifically.

Measure key aspects of the current process and collect relevant data; calculate the 'as-is'
Process Capability.

Analyze the data to investigate and verify cause-and-effect relationships. Determine what
the relationships are, and attempt to ensure that all factors have been considered. Seek out
root cause of the defect under investigation.

Improve or optimize the current process based upon data analysis using techniques such
as design of experiments, poka yoke or mistake proofing, and standard work to create a
new, future state process. Set up pilot runs to establish process capability.

Control the future state process to ensure that any deviations from the target are corrected
before they result in defects. Implement control systems such as statistical process
control, production boards, visual workplaces, and continuously monitor the process.

Some organizations add a Recognize step at the beginning, which is to recognize the right
problem to work on, thus yielding an RDMAIC methodology.[13]

DMADV or DFSS

The five steps of DMADV

Main article: DFSS
The DMADV project methodology, known as DFSS ("Design For Six Sigma"),[9] features five
phases:

Define design goals that are consistent with customer demands and the enterprise
strategy.

Measure and identify CTQs (characteristics that are Critical To Quality), measure
product capabilities, production process capability, and measure risks.

Analyze to develop and design alternatives

Design an improved alternative, best suited per analysis in the previous step

Verify the design, set up pilot runs, implement the production process and hand it over to
the process owner(s).

Notes on User Centered Design Process (UCD)

Page Contents

UCD in a Sentence

UCD Principles

Usability

UCD Process Steps

More Information

NOTE: This page is a collection of notes on user-centered design process (UCD). It is not
intended to be comprehensive, and listing of any information here does not imply
endorsement by W3C.

UCD in a Sentence
User-centered design process (UCD) is also called human-centred design process.
Human centred design processes for interactive systems, ISO 13407 (1999), states: "Humancentred design is an approach to interactive system development that focuses specifically on
making systems usable. It is a multi-disciplinary activity."
In UCD, all "development proceeds with the user as the center of focus." (Jeffrey Rubin,
Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests, John Wiley
and Sons, Inc., 1984) Rubin depicts the User-Centered Design Process as follows:

The users are in the center of a double circle.

The inner ring contains: Context; Objectives; Environment and Goals.

The outer ring contains: Task Detail; Task Content; Task Organization and Task Flow.

"User-Centered Design (UCD) is a user interface design process that focuses on usability goals,
user characteristics, environment, tasks, and workflow in the design of an interface. UCD
follows a series of well-defined methods and techniques for analysis, design, and evaluation of
mainstream hardware, software, and web interfaces. The UCD process is an iterative process,
where design and evaluation steps are built in from the first stage of projects, through
implementation." (Shawn Lawton Henry and Mary Martinson, Accessibility in User-Centered
Design)

UCD Principles
From Jeffrey Rubin, Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct
Effective Tests, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1984:
1. Early focus on users and tasks
o

Structured and systematic information gathering (consistent across the board)

Designers trained by experts before conducting data collection sessions

2. Empirical Measurement and testing of product usage

o

Focus on ease of learning and ease of use

Testing of prototypes with actual users

3. Iterative Design
o

Product designed, modified and tested repeatedly.

Allow for the complete overhaul and rethinking of design by early testing of
conceptual models and design ideas.

Usability
The goal of UCD is to produce products that have a high degree of usability. ISO 9241-11 (1998)
defines usability as the "extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve
specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use."
Jeffrey Rubin describes usability objectives as:

Usefulness - product enables user to achieve their goals - the tasks that it was designed to
carry out and/or wants needs of user.

Effectiveness (ease of use) - quantitatively measured by speed of performance or error

rate and is tied to a percentage of users.

Learnability - user's ability to operate the system to some defined level of competence
after some predetermined period of training. Also, refers to ability for infrequent users to
relearn the system.

Attitude (likeability) - user's perceptions, feelings and opinions of the product, usually
captured through both written and oral communication.

UCD Process Steps

While the basic principles and techniques are the same, different variations of user-centered
design processes exist. The following example is typical of a UCD process for designing Web
applications.
1. Analysis
o

Vision, goals, objectives

Image (feeling)
Challenges and constraints

User/Audience analysis

User Categories List

User Categories Matrix with knowledge, experience, and skill (KES) in

www, accessibility, html, etc.; connection, environment; hardware,
software; AT; frequency of use

Profiles (details, facts, figures)

Personas/Characterizations (made up "person" with name, etc.)

Technique: Field studies, contextual inquiry

Task/Purpose analysis

Task List

User-Task Matrix

Information architecture analysis

Content list

Content-User Matrix

Hierarchy, Web relationships

Workflow analysis

Workflow

Scenarios

2. Design
o

@@ add the usability iceberg image 10% presentation, 30% interaction, 60%
conceptual model

Conceptual/Mental model, metaphors, design concepts

Navigation design

Storyboards, wireframes

Detailed design

Paper prototypes

Online mockups

Functional online prototypes

3. Evaluation (iterate back to Design)

o

Design walkthoughs ("cognitive walkthroughs")

Heuristic evaluation

Guidelines reviews

Usability testing - paper, low fidelity - high fidelity; informal - formal

4. Implementation
5. Deployment